112-557: The Valar ( ['valar] ; singular Vala ) are characters in J. R. R. Tolkien 's legendarium . They are "angelic powers" or "gods" subordinate to the one God ( Eru Ilúvatar ). The Ainulindalë describes how some of the Ainur choose to enter the world ( Arda ) to complete its material development after its form is determined by the Music of the Ainur. The mightiest of these are called
224-465: A Catholic , realised he had created a dilemma for himself , as if these beings were sentient and had a sense of right and wrong, then they must have souls and could not have been created wholly evil. Dragons (or "worms") appear in several varieties, distinguished by whether they have wings and whether they breathe fire (cold-drakes versus fire-drakes). The first of the fire-drakes ( Urulóki in Quenya)
336-622: A frame story that changed over the years , first with an Ælfwine-type character who translates the "Golden Book" of the sages Rumil or Pengoloð; later, having the Hobbit Bilbo Baggins collect the stories into the Red Book of Westmarch , translating mythological Elvish documents in Rivendell . The scholar Gergely Nagy observes that Tolkien "thought of his works as texts within the fictional world " (his emphasis), and that
448-762: A tightrope unaided. Their eyesight is keen. Elves are immortal, unless killed in battle. They are re-embodied in Valinor if killed. Men were "the Secondborn" of the Children of Ilúvatar: they awoke in Middle-earth much later than the Elves. Men (and Hobbits) were the last humanoid race to appear in Middle-earth: Dwarves, Ents and Orcs also preceded them. The capitalized term "Man" (plural "Men")
560-575: A Valar-like group who behave much like gods, and a glimmer of his Old Straight Road , the way across the sea to Valinor forever closed to mortal Men by the remaking of the world after Númenor 's attack on Valinor. Scholars such as John Garth have noted that the Valar resemble the Æsir , the Norse gods of Asgard . Thor , for example, physically the strongest of the gods, can be seen both in Oromë, who fights
672-793: A catastrophic transition from a flat to a spherical world, known as the Akallabeth, in which Aman became inaccessible to mortal Men. Tolkien described the region in which the Hobbits lived as "the North-West of the Old World, east of the Sea", and the north-west of the Old World is essentially Europe , especially Britain . However, as he noted in private letters, the geographies do not match, and he did not consciously make them match when he
784-565: A continuing examination of Tolkien's works and supporting mythology, became a scholarly area of study soon after his death. A legendarium is a literary collection of legends . This medieval Latin noun originally referred mainly to texts detailing legends of the lives of saints . A surviving example is the Anjou Legendarium , dating from the 14th century. Quotations in the Oxford English Dictionary for
896-476: A little glorified by enchantment of distance in time. ...if it were 'history', it would be difficult to fit the lands and events (or 'cultures') into such evidence as we possess, archaeological or geological, concerning the nearer or remoter part of what is now called Europe; though the Shire , for instance, is expressly stated to have been in this region...I hope the, evidently long but undefined gap in time between
1008-525: A private project to create a mythology for England . The earliest story, "The Voyage of Earendel, the Evening Star", is from 1914; he revised and rewrote the legendarium stories for most of his adult life. The Hobbit (1937), Tolkien's first published novel, was not originally part of the larger mythology but became linked to it. Both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings (1954 and 1955) are set in
1120-508: A publisher would take it, and notes that Tolkien was a perfectionist, and further that he was perhaps afraid of finishing as he wished to go on with his sub-creation , his invention of myth in Middle-earth. Tolkien first began working on the stories that would become The Silmarillion in 1914. His reading, in 1914, of the Old English manuscript Christ I led to Earendel and the first element of his legendarium, "The Voyage of Earendel,
1232-499: A result, the Valar's knowledge and power had to be limited, and they could make mistakes and moral errors. Their bringing of the Elves to Valinor meant that the Elves were "gathered at their knee", a moral error as it suggested something close to worship . The scholar of literature Marjorie Burns notes that Tolkien wrote that to be acceptable to modern readers, mythology had to be brought up to "our grade of assessment". In her view, between his early work, The Book of Lost Tales , and
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#17327727820631344-596: A rival to Sauron for absolute power in Middle-earth. Other races involved in the struggle against evil were Dwarves , Ents and most famously Hobbits . The early stages of the conflict are chronicled in The Silmarillion , while the final stages of the struggle to defeat Sauron are told in The Hobbit and in The Lord of the Rings . Conflict over the possession and control of precious or magical objects
1456-484: A sequel to The Hobbit . Tolkien began to revise the Silmarillion, but soon turned to the sequel, which became The Lord of the Rings . Writing The Lord of the Rings during the 1940s, Tolkien was attempting to address the dilemma of creating a narrative consistent with a "sequel" of the published The Hobbit and a desire to present a more comprehensive view of its large unpublished background. He renewed work on
1568-473: A spoken language, but may have developed Valarin when they took physical, humanlike (or elf-like) forms. The passage at the start of the Old English poem Beowulf about Scyld Scefing contains a cryptic mention of þā ("those") who have sent Scyld as a baby in a boat, presumably from across the sea, and to whom Scyld's body is returned in a ship funeral , the vessel sailing by itself. Shippey suggests that Tolkien may have seen in this both an implication of
1680-506: A vision of the end of the world, its breaking and remaking, and the recovery of the Silmarilli and the 'light before the Sun'"; and in 1954, "Actually in the imagination of this story we are now living on a physically round Earth. But the whole 'legendarium' contains a transition from a flat world ... to a globe ". On both texts, he explained in 1954 that "... my legendarium , especially
1792-577: Is a recurring theme in the stories. The First Age is dominated by the doomed quest of the elf Fëanor and most of his Noldorin clan to recover three precious jewels called the Silmarils that Morgoth stole from them (hence the title The Silmarillion ). The Second and Third Age are dominated by the forging of the Rings of Power , and the fate of the One Ring forged by Sauron, which gives its wearer
1904-439: Is called Elbereth . Men know them by many other names, and sometimes worship them as gods. With the exception of Oromë, the names listed below are not actual names but rather titles: The true names of the Valar are nowhere recorded. The males are called "Lords of the Valar", and the females are called "Queens of the Valar," or Valier . Of the known seven male and seven female Valar, there are six married pairs: Ulmo and Nienna are
2016-533: Is called Khuzdul , and was kept largely as a secret language for their own use. Like Hobbits, Dwarves live exclusively in Middle-earth. They generally reside under mountains, where they are specialists in mining and metalwork. Tolkien identified Hobbits as an offshoot of the race of Men. Another name for Hobbit is 'Halfling', as they were generally only half the size of Men. In their lifestyle and habits they closely resemble Men, and in particular Englishmen, except for their preference for living in holes underground. By
2128-478: Is exactly right". Tolkien states in another letter that the Valar "entered the world after its making, and that the name is properly applied only to the great among them, who take the imaginative but not the theological place of 'gods'." Whittingham comments that the "thoughtful and carefully developed explanations" that Tolkien gives in these letters are markedly unlike his depictions of the Valar in his "earliest stories". The Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey discusses
2240-503: Is not equating the events here with the Messiah 's return, he was happy when readers picked up biblical echoes . In her view the language here is clearly biblical, evoking Malachi 's messianic prophecy "See, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble ... And you shall tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet". The theologian Ralph C. Wood describes
2352-579: Is taken by his lieutenant Sauron , a Maia . The Valar withdrew from direct involvement in the affairs of Middle-earth after the defeat of Morgoth, but in later years they sent the wizards or Istari to help in the struggle against Sauron. The most important wizards were Gandalf the Grey and Saruman the White . Gandalf remained true to his mission and proved crucial in the fight against Sauron. Saruman, however, became corrupted and sought to establish himself as
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#17327727820632464-476: Is the known world, "recalling the Norse Midgard and the equivalent words in early English", noting that Tolkien made it clear that this was " our world ... in a purely imaginary ... period of antiquity". Tolkien explained in a letter to his publisher that it "is just a use of Middle English middle-erde (or erthe ), altered from Old English Middangeard : the name for the inhabited lands of men 'between
2576-543: Is used as a gender-neutral racial description, to distinguish humans from the other human-like races of Middle-earth. In appearance they are much like Elves, but on average less beautiful. Unlike Elves, Men are mortal, ageing and dying quickly, usually living 40–80 years. However the Númenóreans could live several centuries, and their descendants the Dúnedain also tended to live longer than regular humans. This tendency
2688-593: The Miðgarðr of Norse mythology and Middangeard in Old English works, including Beowulf . Middle-earth is the oecumene (i.e. the human-inhabited world, or the central continent of Earth ) in Tolkien's imagined mythological past . Tolkien's most widely read works, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings , are set entirely in Middle-earth. "Middle-earth" has also become a short-hand term for Tolkien's legendarium , his large body of fantasy writings, and for
2800-642: The Ainur entered Arda, following the creation events in the Ainulindalë and long ages of labour throughout Eä , the fictional universe . Time from that point was measured using Valian Years , though the subsequent history of Arda was divided into three time periods using different years, known as the Years of the Lamps , the Years of the Trees and the Years of the Sun . A separate, overlapping chronology divides
2912-710: The Black Speech (Burzum) for his slaves (such as Orcs ) to speak. In the Third Age , five of the Maiar were embodied and sent to Middle-earth to help the free peoples to overthrow Sauron. These are the Istari or Wizards , including Gandalf , Saruman , and Radagast . The Elves are known as "the Firstborn" of Ilúvatar: intelligent beings created by Ilúvatar alone, with many different clans . Originally Elves all spoke
3024-629: The Old English view of luck and personal courage, as Beowulf ' s " wyrd often spares the man who isn't doomed, as long as his courage holds." The scholar of humanities Paul H. Kocher similarly discusses the role of providence, in the form of the intentions of the Valar or of the creator, in Bilbo 's finding of the One Ring and Frodo 's bearing of it; as Gandalf says, they were "meant" to have it, though it remained their choice to co-operate with this purpose. Rutledge writes that in The Lord of
3136-476: The Third Age of Middle-earth , while virtually all of his earlier writing had been set in the first two ages of the world. The Lord of the Rings occasionally alludes to figures and events from the legendarium to create an impression of depth , but such ancient tales are depicted as being remembered by few until the story makes them relevant. After The Lord of the Rings , Tolkien returned to his older stories to bring them to publishable form, but never completed
3248-572: The Two Trees , their greatest joy because they illuminate the beauty of Valinor and delight the Elves. At Melkor's instigation the evil giant spider Ungoliant destroys the Trees. Fëanor, a Noldor Elf, with forethought and love, captures the light of the Two Trees in three Silmarils, the greatest jewels ever created. Melkor steals the Silmarils from Fëanor, kills his father, Finwë , chief of
3360-471: The West Midlands , with the town at its centre, Hobbiton , at the same latitude as Oxford . Tolkien's Middle-earth is peopled not only by Men , but by Elves , Dwarves , Ents , and Hobbits , and by monsters including Dragons, Trolls , and Orcs . Through the imagined history, the peoples other than Men dwindle, leave or fade, until, after the period described in the books, only Men are left on
3472-485: The "primary 'legendarium'", for the core episodes and themes of The Silmarillion which were not abandoned in his father's constant redrafting of the work. The scholars Verlyn Flieger and Carl F. Hostetter edited a scholarly collection " Tolkien's Legendarium: Essays on The History of Middle-earth ". Flieger writes that "...the greatest [event] is the creation of the Silmarils, the Gems of light that give their names to
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3584-606: The 'Downfall of Númenor ' which lies immediately behind The Lord of the Rings , is based on my view: that Men are essentially mortal and must not try to become 'immortal' in the flesh", and in 1955, "But the beginning of the legendarium, of which the Trilogy is part (the conclusion), was an attempt to reorganise some of the Kalevala ". "Tolkien's legendarium" is defined narrowly in John D. Rateliff 's The History of The Hobbit as
3696-444: The 1940s, he changed his mind, and the tongue he had developed became Primitive Quendian instead. He then conceived an entirely new tongue for the Valar, still called Valarin; he did not develop this new language in any detail. In this later conception, Valarin is unrelated to the other languages of Middle-earth. Only a few words of Valarin, mainly proper names, are recorded. The Valar can communicate through thought and have no need for
3808-749: The Ainur entered Eä, and the greatest of these were called the Valar . Melkor , the chief agent of evil in Eä, and later called Morgoth , was initially one of the Valar. With the Valar came lesser spirits of the Ainur, called the Maiar . Melian, the wife of the Elven King Thingol in the First Age , was a Maia. There were also evil Maiar, including the Balrogs and the second Dark Lord, Sauron . Sauron devised
3920-515: The Ainur, including Manwë, the Lord of the Valar, and Melkor, his brother. The two are distinguished by the selfless love of Manwë for the Music of Ilúvatar and the selfish love that Melkor bears for himself and no other—least of all for the Children of Ilúvatar , Elves and Men . Melkor (later named Morgoth , Sindarin for "dark enemy") arrives in the world first, causing tumult wherever he goes. As
4032-619: The Crebain, evil crows who become spies for Saruman , and the Ravens of Erebor , who brought news to the Dwarves. The horse-line of the Mearas of Rohan, especially Gandalf's mount, Shadowfax, also appear to be intelligent and understand human speech. The bear-man Beorn had a number of animal friends about his house. The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings , both set in Middle-earth, have been
4144-509: The Evening Star". He intended his stories to become a mythology that would explain the origins of English history and culture, and to provide the necessary "historical" background for his invented Elvish languages . Much of this early work was written while Tolkien, then a British officer returned from France during World War I, was in hospital and on sick leave. He completed " The Fall of Gondolin " in late 1916. He called his collection of nascent stories The Book of Lost Tales . This became
4256-484: The Fall of Barad-dûr and our Days is sufficient for 'literary credibility', even for readers acquainted with what is known as 'pre-history'. I have, I suppose, constructed an imaginary time, but kept my feet on my own mother-earth for place. I prefer that to the contemporary mode of seeking remote globes in 'space'. In another letter, Tolkien made correspondences in latitude between Europe and Middle-earth: The action of
4368-527: The Finnish epic, the Kalevala ; or of St Jerome , Snorri Sturlusson , Jacob Grimm , or Nikolai Gruntvig, all of whom Tolkien saw as exemplars of a professional and creative philology. This was, Nagy believes, what Tolkien thought essential if he was to present a mythology for England , since such a thing had to have been written by many hands. Further, writes Nagy, Christopher Tolkien "inserted himself in
4480-537: The Noldor in Aman, and flees to Middle-earth. Many of the Noldor, in defiance of the will of the Valar, swear revenge and set out in pursuit. This event, and the poisonous words of Melkor that foster mistrust among the Elves, leads to the exile of the greater part of the Noldor to Middle-earth: The Valar close Valinor against them to prevent their return. For the remainder of the First Age , the Lord of Waters, Ulmo, alone of
4592-571: The Rings , Tolkien writes: "Those days, the Third Age of Middle-earth, are now long past, and the shape of all lands has been changed..." The Appendices make several references in both history and etymology of topics "now" (in modern English languages) and "then" (ancient languages); The year no doubt was of the same length,¹ [ the footnote here reads : 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 46 seconds.] for long ago as those times are now reckoned in years and lives of men, they were not very remote according to
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4704-591: The Rings , and especially at moments like Gandalf's explanation to Frodo in " The Shadow of the Past ", there are clear hints of a higher power at work in events in Middle-earth: There was more than one power at work, Frodo. The Ring was trying to get back to its master ... Behind that there was something else at work, beyond any design of the Ring-maker. I can put it no plainer than by saying that Bilbo
4816-401: The Rings , did he realise the significance of hobbits in his mythology. In 1937, encouraged by the success of The Hobbit , Tolkien submitted to his publisher George Allen & Unwin an incomplete but more fully developed version of The Silmarillion called Quenta Silmarillion . The reader rejected the work as being obscure and "too Celtic ". The publisher instead asked Tolkien to write
4928-1127: The Rings: The Return of the King received 11 Academy Award nominations and won all of them, matching the totals awarded to Ben-Hur and Titanic . Two well-made fan films of Middle-earth, The Hunt for Gollum and Born of Hope , were uploaded to YouTube on 8 May 2009 and 11 December 2009 respectively. Numerous computer and video games have been inspired by J. R. R. Tolkien 's works set in Middle-earth. Titles have been produced by studios such as Electronic Arts , Vivendi Games , Melbourne House , and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment . Aside from officially licensed games, many Tolkien-inspired mods , custom maps and total conversions have been made for many games, such as Warcraft III , Minecraft , Rome: Total War , Medieval II: Total War , The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim . In addition, there are many text-based MMORPGs (known as MU*s ) based on Middle-earth. The oldest of these dates back to 1991, and
5040-405: The Silmarillion after completing The Lord of the Rings , and he greatly desired to publish the two works together. When it became clear that would not be possible, Tolkien turned his full attention to preparing The Lord of the Rings for publication. John D. Rateliff has analysed the complex relationship between The Hobbit and The Silmarillion , providing evidence that they were related from
5152-457: The Valar (and all the Ainur) into being by his thought and may therefore be considered their father. However, not all the Valar are siblings; where this is held to be so, it is because they are so "in the thought of Ilúvatar". It was the Valar who first practise marriage and later pass on their custom to the Elves; all the Valar have spouses, save Nienna, Ulmo, and Melkor. Only one such marriage among
5264-477: The Valar and Maiar as being what Christians "would call angels ", intermediaries between the creator, Eru Ilúvatar, and the created cosmos. Like angels, they have free will and can therefore rebel against him. Matthew Dickerson , writing in the J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia , calls the Valar the "Powers of Middle-earth", noting that they are not incarnated and quoting the Tolkien scholar Verlyn Flieger 's description of their original role as "to shape and light
5376-518: The Valar takes place within the world, that of Tulkas and Nessa after the raising of the Two Lamps. Tolkien at first decided that Valarin , the tongue of the Valar, would be the proto-language of the Elves. He developed the Valarin language and its grammar in the early 1930s. In this early conception, as described in the 1937 Lhammas , all Middle-earth's languages are derived from Valarin. In
5488-616: The Valar's main deeds are the creation of Númenor as a refuge for the Edain , who are denied access to Aman but given dominion over the rest of the world. The Valar, now including even Ulmo, remain aloof from Middle-earth, allowing the rise to power of Morgoth's lieutenant, Sauron , as a new Dark Lord. Near the end of the Second Age, Sauron convinces the Númenóreans to attack Aman itself. This leads Manwë to call upon Ilúvatar to restore
5600-696: The Valar, or "the Powers of the World", and the others are known as the Maiar . The Valar are mentioned briefly in The Lord of the Rings but Tolkien had developed them earlier, in material published posthumously in The Silmarillion , especially the "Valaquenta" ( Quenya : "Account of the Valar"), The History of Middle-earth , and Unfinished Tales . Scholars have noted that the Valar resemble angels in Christianity but that Tolkien presented them rather more like pagan gods . Their role in providing what
5712-577: The Valar, visits the world beyond Aman. Ulmo directly influences the actions of Tuor , setting him on the path to find the hidden city of Gondolin . At the end of the First Age, the Valar send forth a great host of Maiar and Elves from Valinor to Middle-earth, fighting the War of Wrath , in which Melkor is defeated. The lands are changed, and the Elves are again called to Valinor. During the Second Age ,
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#17327727820635824-592: The ability to give conscious life to things. The precise origins of Orcs and Trolls are unclear, as Tolkien considered various possibilities and sometimes changed his mind, leaving several inconsistent accounts. Late in the Third Age, the Uruks or Uruk-hai appeared: a race of Orcs of great size and strength that tolerate sunlight better than ordinary Orcs. Tolkien also mentions "Men-orcs" and "Orc-men"; or "half-orcs" or "goblin-men". They share some characteristics with Orcs (like "slanty eyes") but look more like men. Tolkien,
5936-510: The battle-fury of his fathers ran like new fire in his veins, and he was borne up on Snowmane like a god of old, even as Oromë the Great in the battle of the Valar when the world was young. His golden shield was uncovered, and lo! it shone like an image of the Sun, and the grass flamed into green about the white feet of his steed. For morning came ... and the hosts of Mordor wailed ... and the hoofs of wrath rode over them. The Episcopal priest and author Fleming Rutledge comments that while Tolkien
6048-505: The body of Tolkien's work consisting of: These, with The Lays of Beleriand , written from 1918 onwards, comprise the different "phases" of Tolkien's Elven legendary writings, posthumously edited and published in The Silmarillion and in their original forms in Christopher Tolkien's series The History of Middle-earth . Other Tolkien scholars have used the term legendarium in a variety of contexts. Christopher Tolkien's introduction to The History of Middle-earth series talks about
6160-418: The book for the benefit of readers, despite the expense involved. The definitive and iconic map of Middle-earth was published in The Lord of the Rings . It was refined with Tolkien's approval by the illustrator Pauline Baynes , using Tolkien's detailed annotations, with vignette images and larger paintings at top and bottom, into a stand-alone poster, " A Map of Middle-earth ". In Tolkien's conception, Arda
6272-490: The characters in Middle-earth experience as luck or providence is also discussed. The creator Eru Ilúvatar first reveals to the Ainur his great vision of the world, Arda , through musical themes, as described in Ainulindalë , "The Music of the Ainur" . This world, fashioned from his ideas and expressed as the Music of Ilúvatar, is refined by thoughtful interpretations by the Ainur, who create their own themes based on each unique comprehension. No one Ainu understands all
6384-440: The connection between the Valar and " luck " on Middle-earth, writing that as in real life, "People ... do in sober reality recognise a strongly patterning force in the world around them" but that while this may be due to " Providence or the Valar", the force "does not affect free will and cannot be distinguished from the ordinary operations of nature" nor reduce the necessity of "heroic endeavour". He states that this exactly matches
6496-626: The editor, Christopher Tolkien." Dickerson and Evans use the phrase "legendarium" to encompass the entirety of Tolkien's Middle-earth writings "for convenience". This would encompass texts such as the incomplete drafts of stories published before The History of Middle-earth in the 1980 Unfinished Tales . Shaun Gunner of The Tolkien Society has called the 2021 collection of Tolkien's previously unpublished legendarium writings The Nature of Middle-earth , edited by Carl F. Hostetter, "an unofficial 13th volume of The History of Middle-earth series". Unlike " fictional universes " constructed for
6608-418: The enlightenment of Ilúvatar. Once the Music is complete, including Melkor's interwoven themes of vanity, Ilúvatar gives the Ainur a choice—to dwell with him or to enter the world that they have mutually created. The greatest of those that choose to enter the world become known as the Valar , the 'Powers of Arda', and the lesser are called the Maiar . Among the Valar are some of the most powerful and wise of
6720-422: The entirety of his fictional world. Middle-earth is the main continent of Earth (Arda) in an imaginary period of the past, ending with Tolkien's Third Age , about 6,000 years ago. Tolkien's tales of Middle-earth mostly focus on the north-west of the continent. This region is suggestive of Europe, the north-west of the Old World , with the environs of the Shire reminiscent of England , but, more specifically,
6832-515: The events in Tolkien's stories take place in the north-west of Middle-earth. In the First Age , further to the north-west was the subcontinent Beleriand ; it was engulfed by the ocean at the end of the First Age. Tolkien prepared several maps of Middle-earth. Some were published in his lifetime. The main maps are those published in The Hobbit , The Lord of the Rings , The Silmarillion , and Unfinished Tales , and appear as foldouts or illustrations. Tolkien insisted that maps be included in
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#17327727820636944-418: The first big screen adaptation of the fictional setting was introduced in Ralph Bakshi 's animated The Lord of the Rings . New Line Cinema released the first part of director Peter Jackson 's The Lord of the Rings film series in 2001 as part of a trilogy; it was followed by a prequel trilogy in The Hobbit film series with several of the same actors playing their old roles. In 2003, The Lord of
7056-408: The functional place of Bilbo" as editor and collator, in his view "reinforcing the mythopoeic effect" that his father had wanted to achieve, making the published book do what Bilbo's book was meant to do, and so unintentionally realising his father's intention. Middle-earth Middle-earth is the setting of much of the English writer J. R. R. Tolkien 's fantasy. The term is equivalent to
7168-406: The gift of life but under the condition that they be taken and put to sleep in widely separated locations in Middle-earth and not to awaken until after the Firstborn were upon the Earth. They are mortal like Men, but live much longer, usually several hundred years. A peculiarity of Dwarves is that both males and females are bearded, and thus appear identical to outsiders. The language spoken by Dwarves
7280-425: The history into 'Ages of the Children of Ilúvatar'. The first such Age began with the Awakening of the Elves during the Years of the Trees (by which time the Ainur had already long inhabited Arda) and continued for the first six centuries of the Years of the Sun. All the subsequent Ages took place during the Years of the Sun. Arda is, as critics have noted, "our own green and solid Earth at some quite remote epoch in
7392-445: The idea of multiple 'voices' who collected the stories over the millennia. When Tolkien published The Hobbit in 1937 (which was itself not originally intended for publication, but as a story told privately to his children), the narrative of the published text was loosely influenced by the legendarium as a context, but was not designed to be part of it. Carpenter comments that not until Tolkien began to write its sequel, The Lord of
7504-643: The late-biblical angels)"; at a deeper level, it means "the One", Eru Ilúvatar, or in Christian terms, divine Providence. Tolkien%27s legendarium Tolkien's legendarium is the body of J. R. R. Tolkien 's mythopoeic writing, unpublished in his lifetime, that forms the background to his The Lord of the Rings , and which his son Christopher summarized in his compilation of The Silmarillion and documented in his 12-volume series The History of Middle-earth . The legendarium's origins reach back to 1914, when Tolkien began writing poems and story sketches, drawing maps , and inventing languages and names as
7616-418: The latitude of ancient Troy . In another letter he stated: ...Thank you very much for your letter. ... It came while I was away, in Gondor ( sc. Venice ), as a change from the North Kingdom, or I would have answered before. He did confirm, however, that the Shire , the land of his Hobbit heroes, was based on England , in particular the West Midlands of his childhood. In the Prologue to The Lord of
7728-422: The loss of the world's symmetry, they move to the western continent of Aman ("Unmarred") and found Valinor . The war with Melkor continues: The Valar realize many wonderful subthemes of Ilúvatar's grand music, while Melkor pours all his energy into Arda and the corruption of creatures like Balrogs , dragons , and Orcs . Most terrible of the early deeds of Melkor is the destruction of the Two Lamps and with them,
7840-468: The making of the world. Their power and wisdom is derived from their Knowledge of the cosmogonical drama". He explains that he intends them to be "of the same order of beauty, power, and majesty as the 'gods' of higher mythology". Whittingham notes further that Tolkien likens lesser spirits, wizards, who are Maiar not Valar, to guardian angels ; and that when describing the Maiar he "vacillates between 'gods' and 'angels' because both terms are close but neither
7952-544: The memory of the Earth. Both the Appendices and The Silmarillion mention constellations, stars and planets that correspond to those seen in the northern hemisphere of Earth, including the Sun, the Moon, Orion (and his belt), Ursa Major and Mars . A map annotated by Tolkien places Hobbiton on the same latitude as Oxford , and Minas Tirith at the latitude of Ravenna , Italy. He used Belgrade , Cyprus , and Jerusalem as further reference points. The history of Middle-earth, as described in The Silmarillion , began when
8064-546: The middle-earth sent unto men. This is from the Crist 1 poem by Cynewulf . The name Éarendel was the inspiration for Tolkien's mariner Eärendil , who set sail from the lands of Middle-earth to ask for aid from the angelic powers, the Valar . Tolkien's earliest poem about Eärendil, from 1914, the same year he read the Crist poem, refers to "the mid-world's rim". Tolkien considered middangeard to be "the abiding place of men",
8176-602: The monsters of Melkor, and in Tulkas, the strongest of the Valar. Manwë, the head of the Valar, has some similarities to Odin , the "Allfather", while the wizard Gandalf , one of the Maiar, resembles Odin the wanderer. Tolkien compared King Théoden of Rohan , charging into the enemy at the Battle of the Pelennor Fields , to a Vala of great power, and to "a god of old": Théoden could not be overtaken. Fey he seemed, or
8288-585: The name for the first two volumes of The History of Middle-earth , which include these early texts. Tolkien never completed The Book of Lost Tales ; he left it to compose the poems " The Lay of Leithian " (in 1925) and " The Lay of the Children of Húrin " (possibly as early as 1918). The first complete version of The Silmarillion was the "Sketch of the Mythology" written in 1926 (later published in Volume IV of The History of Middle-earth ). The "Sketch"
8400-571: The narrative framing device of an Anglo-Saxon mariner named Ælfwine or Eriol or Ottor Wǽfre who finds the island of Tol Eressëa , where the Elves live, and the Elves tell him their history. He collects, translates from Old English , and writes the mythology that appears in The History of Middle-earth . Ælfwine means "Elf-friend" in Old English; men whose names have the same meaning, such as Alboin, Alwin, and Elendil , were to appear in
8512-508: The nature of evil in Arda , the origin of Orcs , the customs of the Elves , the nature and means of Elvish rebirth, the "flat" world, and the story of the Sun and Moon. In any event, with one or two exceptions, he made little change to the narratives during the remaining years of his life. The scholar Verlyn Flieger writes that Tolkien thought of his legendarium as a presented collection, with
8624-538: The only ones who dwell alone. This is evidently a spiritual rather than a physical union, as in Tolkien's later conception they do not reproduce. The Aratar ( Quenya : Exalted ), or High Ones of Arda, are the eight greatest of the Valar: Manwë, Varda, Ulmo, Yavanna, Aulë, Mandos, Nienna, and Oromë. Lórien and Mandos are brothers and are collectively called as the Fëanturi , "Masters of Spirits". Ilúvatar brings
8736-519: The original home of the Valar, the Isle of Almaren. Melkor is captured and chained for many ages in the fastness of Mandos, until he is pardoned by Manwë. With the arrival of the Elves in the world, a new phase of the regency of the Valar begins. Summoned by the Valar, many Elves abandon Middle-earth and the eastern continent for the West, Valinor, where the Valar concentrate their creativity. There they make
8848-496: The others arrive, they see how Melkor's presence would destroy the integrity of Ilúvatar's themes. Eventually, and with the aid of the Vala Tulkas , who enters Arda last, Melkor is temporarily overthrown, and the Valar begin shaping the world and creating beauty to counter the darkness and ugliness of Melkor's discordant noise. The Valar originally dwell on the Isle of Almaren in the middle of Arda, but after its destruction and
8960-518: The overlapping of different and sometimes contradictory accounts was central to his desired effect. Nagy notes that Tolkien went so far as to create facsimile pages from the Dwarves' Book of Mazarbul that is found by the Fellowship in Moria . Further, Tolkien was a philologist ; Nagy comments that Tolkien may have been intentionally imitating the philological style of Elias Lönnrot , compiler of
9072-519: The past." As such, it has not only an immediate story but a history, and the whole thing is an "imagined prehistory" of the Earth as it is now. The Ainur were angelic beings created by the one god of Eä, Eru Ilúvatar . The cosmological myth called the Ainulindalë , or "Music of the Ainur", describes how the Ainur sang for Ilúvatar, who then created Eä to give material form to their music. Many of
9184-490: The physical reality of creation as a whole. In careful geographical terms, Middle-earth is a continent on Arda, excluding regions such as Aman and the isle of Númenor. The alternative wider use is reflected in book titles such as The Complete Guide to Middle-earth , The Road to Middle-earth , The Atlas of Middle-earth , and Christopher Tolkien 's 12-volume series The History of Middle-earth . Tolkien's biographer Humphrey Carpenter states that Tolkien's Middle-earth
9296-428: The physical world in which Man lives out his life and destiny, as opposed to the unseen worlds above and below it, namely Heaven and Hell . He states that it is "my own mother-earth for place ", but in an imaginary past time, not some other planet. He began to use the term "Middle-earth" in the late 1930s, in place of the earlier terms "Great Lands", "Outer Lands", and "Hither Lands". The first published appearance of
9408-442: The planet. Tolkien's stories chronicle the struggle to control the world (called Arda ) and the continent of Middle-earth between, on one side, the angelic Valar , the Elves and their allies among Men ; and, on the other, the demonic Melkor or Morgoth (a Vala fallen into evil), his followers, and their subjects, mostly Orcs , Dragons and enslaved Men. In later ages, after Morgoth's defeat and expulsion from Arda, his place
9520-498: The power to control or influence those wearing the other Rings of Power. In ancient Germanic mythology , the world of Men is known by several names. The Old English middangeard descends from an earlier Germanic word and so has cognates such as the Old Norse Miðgarðr from Norse mythology , transliterated to modern English as Midgard . The original meaning of the second element, from proto-Germanic gardaz ,
9632-495: The published Silmarillion , the Valar had greatly changed, "civilized and modernized", and this had made the Valar "slowly and slightly" more Christian. For example, the Valar now had "spouses" rather than "wives", and their unions were spiritual, not physical. All the same, she writes, readers still perceive the Valar "as a pantheon", serving as gods. Elizabeth Whittingham comments that the Valar are unique to Tolkien, "somewhere between gods and angels". In her view they mostly lack
9744-445: The purpose of writing and publishing popular fiction, Tolkien's legendarium for a long period was a private project, concerned with questions of philology , cosmology , theology and mythology. His biographer Humphrey Carpenter writes that although by 1923 Tolkien had almost completed The Book of Lost Tales , "it was almost as if he did not want to finish it", beginning instead to rewrite it; he suggests that Tolkien may have doubted if
9856-646: The rest of the physical world), which itself was part of the wider creation he called Eä. Aman and Middle-earth are separated from each other by the Great Sea Belegaer , though they make contact in the far north at the Grinding Ice or Helcaraxë. The western continent, Aman, was the home of the Valar , and the Elves called the Eldar . On the eastern side of Middle-earth was the Eastern Sea. Most of
9968-562: The road / And flung his cobweb cloak on me..." C. S. Lewis 's 1938–1945 Space Trilogy calls the home planet "Middle-earth" and specifically references Tolkien's unpublished legendarium; both men were members of the Inklings literary discussion group. Within the overall context of his legendarium , Tolkien's Middle-earth was part of his created world of Arda (which includes the Undying Lands of Aman and Eressëa , removed from
10080-476: The rough brutality of the Norse gods; they have the angels' "sense of moral rightness" but disagree with each other; and their statements most closely resemble those of Homer 's Greek gods , who can express their frustration with mortal men, as Zeus does in the Odyssey In a letter to Milton Waldman, Tolkien states directly that the Valar are "'divine', that is, were originally 'outside' and existed 'before'
10192-593: The same Common Eldarin ancestral tongue, but over thousands of years it diverged into different languages. The two main Elven languages were Quenya , spoken by the Light Elves, and Sindarin , spoken by the Dark Elves. Physically the Elves resemble humans; indeed, they can marry and have children with them, as shown by the few Half-elven in the legendarium. The Elves are agile and quick footed, being able to walk
10304-525: The seas'." There are allusions to a similarly- or identically-named world in the work of other writers both before and after him. William Morris 's 1870 translation of the Volsung Saga calls the world "Midgard". Margaret Widdemer 's 1918 poem "The Gray Magician" contains the lines: "I was living very merrily on Middle Earth / As merry as a maid may be / Till the Gray Magician came down along
10416-473: The start of The Hobbit ' s composition. With the success of The Lord of the Rings , Tolkien in the late 1950s returned to the Silmarillion, planning to revise the material of his legendarium into a form "fit for publication", a task which kept him occupied until his death in 1973, without attaining a completed state. The legendarium has indeed been called "a jumble of overlapping and often competing stories, annals, and lexicons." Much of his later writing
10528-522: The story takes place in the North-west of 'Middle-earth', equivalent in latitude to the coastlands of Europe and the north shores of the Mediterranean. ... If Hobbiton and Rivendell are taken (as intended) to be at about the latitude of Oxford , then Minas Tirith , 600 miles south, is at about the latitude of Florence . The Mouths of Anduin and the ancient city of Pelargir are at about
10640-493: The subject of a variety of film adaptations. There were many early failed attempts to bring the fictional universe to life on screen, some even rejected by the author himself, who was skeptical of the prospects of an adaptation. While animated and live-action shorts were made of Tolkien's books in 1967 and 1971, the first commercial depiction of The Hobbit onscreen was the Rankin/Bass animated TV special in 1977 . In 1978
10752-421: The synonymous noun legendary date from 1513. The Middle English South English Legendary is an example of this form of the noun. Tolkien described his works as a "legendarium" in four letters from 1951 to 1955, a period in which he was attempting to have his unfinished Silmarillion published alongside the more complete The Lord of the Rings . On the Silmarillion, he wrote in 1951, "This legendarium ends with
10864-497: The task. Tolkien's son Christopher chose portions of his late father's vast collection of unpublished material and shaped them into The Silmarillion (1977), a semi-chronological and semi-complete narrative of the mythical world and its origins. The sales were sufficient to enable him to work on and publish many volumes of his father's legendarium stories and drafts; some were presented as completed tales, while others illustrated his father's complex creative process. Tolkien research ,
10976-424: The themes that spring from Ilúvatar. Instead, each elaborates individual themes, singing of mountains and subterranean regions, say, from themes for metals and stones. The themes of Ilúvatar's music are elaborated, and each of the Ainur add harmonious creative touches. Melkor , however, adds discordant themes: He strives against the Music; his themes become evil because they spring from selfishness and vanity, not from
11088-440: The time of The Hobbit , most of them lived in the Shire , a region of the northwest of Middle-earth, having migrated there from further east. The Ents were treelike shepherds of trees, their name coming from an Old English word for giant. Orcs and Trolls (made of stone) were evil creatures bred by Morgoth . They were not original creations but rather "mockeries" of the Children of Ilúvatar and Ents, since only Ilúvatar has
11200-505: The two unfinished time travel novels, The Lost Road in 1936 and The Notion Club Papers in 1945, as the protagonists reappeared in each of several different times. There is no such framework in the published version of The Silmarillion , but the Narn i Hîn Húrin is introduced with the note "Here begins that tale which Ǽlfwine made from the Húrinien ." Tolkien never fully dropped
11312-544: The whole legendarium", equating the legendarium with the Silmarillion (which with italics denotes the 1977 book published under that name, and without italics means the larger body of un-edited drafts used to create that work). In the J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia , David Bratman writes that " The History of Middle-earth is a longitudinal study of the development and elaboration of Tolkien's legendarium through his transcribed manuscripts, with textual commentary by
11424-428: The word "Middle-earth" in Tolkien's works is in the prologue to The Lord of the Rings : "Hobbits had, in fact, lived quietly in Middle-earth for many long years before other folk even became aware of them". The term Middle-earth has come to be applied as a short-hand for the entirety of Tolkien's legendarium, instead of the technically more appropriate, but lesser known terms "Arda" for the physical world and " Eä " for
11536-624: The world to order; Ilúvatar answers by destroying Númenor, as described in the Akallabêth . Aman is removed from Arda (though not from the whole created world, Eä, for Elvish ships could still reach it). In the Third Age , the Valar send the Istari (or wizards) to Middle-earth to aid in the battle against Sauron. The names and attributes of the chief Valar, as they are described in the " Valaquenta ", are listed below. In Middle-earth, they are known by their Sindarin names: Varda, for example,
11648-464: The world". Dickerson writes that while Tolkien presents the Valar like pagan gods , he imagined them more like angels and notes that scholars have compared the devotion of Tolkien's Elves to Elbereth, an epithet of Varda, as resembling the Roman Catholic veneration of Mary the mother of Jesus . Dickerson states that the key point is that the Valar were "not to be worshipped". He argues that as
11760-481: Was meant to find the Ring, and not by its maker. In which case you also were meant to have it. [Tolkien's italics] Rutledge notes that in this way, Tolkien repeatedly hints at a higher power "that controls even the Ring itself, even the maker of the Ring himself [her italics]", and asks who or what that power might be. Her reply is that at the surface level, it means the Valar, "a race of created beings (analogous to
11872-526: Was "enclosure", cognate with English "yard"; middangeard was assimilated by folk etymology to "middle earth". Middle-earth was at the centre of nine worlds in Norse mythology, and of three worlds (with heaven above, hell below) in some later Christian versions . Tolkien's first encounter with the term middangeard , as he stated in a letter, was in an Old English fragment he studied in 1913–1914: Éala éarendel engla beorhtast / ofer middangeard monnum sended. Hail Earendel, brightest of angels / above
11984-663: Was Glaurung the Golden, bred by Morgoth in Angband , and called "The Great Worm", "The Worm of Morgoth", and "The Father of Dragons". Middle-earth contains sapient animals including the Eagles , Huan the Great Hound from Valinor and the wolf-like Wargs . In general the origins and nature of these animals are unclear. Giant spiders such as Shelob descended from Ungoliant , of unknown origin. Other sapient species include
12096-555: Was a 28-page synopsis written to explain the background of the story of Túrin to R. W. Reynolds, a friend to whom Tolkien had sent several of the stories. From the "Sketch" Tolkien developed a fuller narrative version of The Silmarillion called Quenta Noldorinwa (also included in Volume IV). The Quenta Noldorinwa was the last version of The Silmarillion that Tolkien completed. The stories in The Book of Lost Tales employ
12208-462: Was created specifically as "the Habitation" ( Imbar or Ambar ) for the Children of Ilúvatar ( Elves and Men ). It is envisaged in a flat Earth cosmology, with the stars, and later also the sun and moon, revolving around it. Tolkien's sketches show a disc-like face for the world which looked up to the stars. However, Tolkien's legendarium addresses the spherical Earth paradigm by depicting
12320-442: Was however concerned more with the theological and philosophical underpinnings of the work, rather than with the narratives themselves. By this time, he had doubts about fundamental aspects of the work that went back to the earliest versions of the stories, and it seems that he felt the need to resolve these problems before he could produce the "final" version of The Silmarillion . During this time he wrote extensively on such topics as
12432-477: Was weakened both by time and by intermingling with lesser peoples. The Dwarves are a race of humanoids who are shorter than Men but larger than Hobbits. The Dwarves were created by the Vala Aulë, before the Firstborn awoke due to his impatience for the arrival of the children of Ilúvatar to teach and to cherish. When confronted and shamed for his presumption by Ilúvatar, Eru took pity on Aulë and gave his creation
12544-478: Was writing: As for the shape of the world of the Third Age , I am afraid that was devised 'dramatically' rather than geologically , or paleontologically . I am historically minded. Middle-earth is not an imaginary world. ... The theatre of my tale is this earth, the one in which we now live, but the historical period is imaginary. The essentials of that abiding place are all there (at any rate for inhabitants of N.W. Europe), so naturally it feels familiar, even if
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